* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/Q6-ErAxGmQ0

 

About the Event: While research into why repression varies has thrived, essentially no effort has been made to examine stopping large-scale applications once underway. We put forward a new theoretical framework that conceptualizes repressive behavior as a rare/slow-changing process that is unlikely to terminate unless it is perturbed by a significant cost. As such, we maintain that repression is more likely ended by democratization than from diverse factors commonly espoused in the literature and policy community (e.g., military intervention, naming/shaming, international law and economic sanctions). Investigating a new database regarding 239 high-level repression spells for the period 1976-2007, we find that democratization is associated with spell-termination, while there is little systematic pacifying influence for other factors. Additionally, we find that non-violent movements for change largely drive democratization but that these movements have little direct impact on state repression themselves.

Draft Paper

 

About the Speaker: Christian Davenport is a Professor of Political Science and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo and Elected Fellow at the American Association for the Arts and Sciences. Primary research interests include political conflict, measurement, racism and popular culture. He is the author of seven books and author of numerous articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science and the Annual Review of Political Science (among others). He is the recipient of numerous grants (e.g., 12 from the National Science Foundation) and awards.

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/tcWqulaKXy0

 

About the Event: Since the end of World War II, the United States has set out to oust governments in the Middle East on an average of once per decade—in places such as Iran, Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Though pursued for a wide range of reasons, these operations all failed to achieve their ultimate goals, produced a range of unintended and even catastrophic consequences, carried heavy financial and human costs, and often left the countries in question worse off than they were before. Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East gives readers a look at the U.S. experience with regime change over the past seventy years, and an insider’s view on U.S. policymaking in the region at the highest levels.

Book Purchase:  https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Long-Game-Promise-Regime/dp/1250217032

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Philip Gordon is the Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.  From 2013-15, he served as Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region.  As the most senior White House official focused on the greater Middle East, he worked closely with the President, Secretary of State, and National Security Adviser on the full range of geopolitical, economic, and security issues facing the region.  From 2009-13, Dr. Gordon served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  In that position he was responsible for 50 countries in Europe and Eurasia as well as for NATO and the European Union (EU).  He is the author of Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, published October 6, 2020.    

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/yyZ54SgGuz4

 

About the Event: We are beginning to understand that globalization has strategic consequences. Countries are using their position in globalized networks to "weaponize interdependence," through their dominance of information and financial networks. In this talk, Henry Farrell will discuss the research and policy agenda of weaponized interdependence, addressing such questions as: What areas of the global economy are most vulnerable to unilateral control of information and financial networks? How sustainable is the use of weaponized interdependence? What are the possible responses from targeted actors? And how sustainable is the open global economy if weaponized interdependence becomes a default tool for managing international relations?

Book Purchase:   https://amzn.to/3d29F4a

 

About the Speaker: Henry Farrell is SNF Agora Institute Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology, and Editor in Chief of the Monkey Cage blog at the Washington Post. His book (with Abraham Newman) Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight over Freedom and Security, was published in 2019 by Princeton University Press, and has been awarded the 2019 Chicago-Kent College of Law / Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize and the ISA-ICOMM Best Book Award. In addition he has authored or co-authored 34 academic articles, as well as several book chapters and numerous non-academic publications. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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This event is Co-Sponsored by the Center for South Asia (CSA)

How are India and the United States responding to the growing political and military power of China in the Indian Ocean region? India has traditionally sought to maintain strategic preeminence in the region and sees its influence as being increasingly contested. The United States sees the region as an integral part of the wider “Indo-Pacific,” defined by intensifying strategic competition with China. Military planners at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command are refining their strategy in the region, including their approach to mitigating security risks and deepening the U.S. Major Defense Partnership with India, alongside other allies and partners. In this off-the-record webinar, the Command’s senior policy advisor and two leading experts on the Indian Ocean will share their assessments of the key strategic challenges facing India and the United States in the region.

Speakers:

David Brewster is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Security College at the Australian National University, where he focuses on security in India and the Indian Ocean region, and Indo-Pacific maritime affairs. His books include India as an Asia Pacific Power, about India’s strategic role in the Asia Pacific, India’s Ocean: the Story of India’s Bid for Regional Leadership, which examines India’s strategic ambitions in the Indian Ocean, and the edited volume, India and China at Sea: Competition for Naval Dominance in the Indian Ocean. He is the author of several reports, including The Second Sea, which examines Australia’s role in the Indian Ocean proposes a new roadmap for Australia’s strategic engagement in that region. Brewster holds a PhD from the Australian National University.
 

Shehzi Khan is the Senior Policy Advisor in the Strategic Planning and Policy Directorate at Indo-Pacific Command, supporting senior leadership on key regional policy initiatives.  Ms. Khan served on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, as Executive Officer to the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and as senior South Asia analyst at the State Department.  Ms. Khan briefed the President of the United States in 2013.  She has been posted in Pakistan, China, and New Zealand and also lived and worked in India, Egypt, and France. Ms. Khan speaks five foreign languages and holds an MBA in International Finance and an MA in International Relations.  She is a recipient of the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal and was named State Department’s Analyst of the Year in 2014.
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Nilanthi Samaranayake directs the Strategy and Policy Analysis Program at CNA. She has led several studies on Indian Ocean and South Asia security. Recently Samaranayake has worked on U.S.-India naval cooperation, water resource competition in the Brahmaputra River basin, and Sri Lankan foreign policy. She also has conducted research on the navies of Bangladesh and Pakistan, the Maldives Coast Guard, security threats in the Bay of Bengal, and relations between smaller South Asian countries and China, India and the United States. Prior to joining CNA, Samaranayake held positions at the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Pew Research Center. Samaranayake holds an M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in International Studies from American University.

Arzan Tarapore (Moderator) is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. Tarapore’s research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. This includes a forthcoming paper on “Building Strategic Leverage in the Indian Ocean Region.” He previously held research positions at the RAND Corporation, the Observer Research Foundation, and the East-West Center in Washington. Prior to his scholarly career, he served as an analyst in the Australian Defence Department. Tarapore holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.

 

* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/lxMWuFvq2NU

 

About the Event: It has become increasingly clear that the Kremlin poses a security challenge to the West, with relations between the United States and Europe, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, having fallen to their lowest point since the end of the 1980s.  In particular, Moscow seeks to overturn the post-Cold War European security order, which it believes disadvantages Russian interests.  The Russian challenge includes both foreign and domestic policy aspects, as the Kremlin augments traditional political and military tools with more sophisticated efforts to exploit and widen divides within Western societies.

Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, will discuss the challenge posed by Russia and the motives behind it.

 

About the Speaker: 

Fiona Hill is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She recently served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. She is co-author of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015).

Prior to joining Brookings, Hill was director of strategic planning at The Eurasia Foundation in Washington, D.C. From 1991 to 1999, she held a number of positions directing technical assistance and research projects at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, including associate director of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, director of the Project on Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union, and coordinator of the Trilateral Study on Japanese-Russian-U.S. Relations.

Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues. Her book with Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy,“The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold,” was published by Brookings Institution Press in December 2003, and her monograph, “Energy Empire: Oil, Gas and Russia’s Revival,” was published by the London Foreign Policy Centre in 2004. The first edition of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” was published by Brookings Institution Press in December 2013, also with Clifford Gaddy.

Hill holds a master’s in Soviet studies and a doctorate in history from Harvard University where she was a Frank Knox Fellow. She also holds a master’s in Russian and modern history from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and has pursued studies at Moscow’s Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages. Hill is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.